Chapter Fourteen

Ginny's Departure

Well, I hope you've all enjoyed the story so far. This is by far my favorite out of all the stories that I have written (or tried to write…heh heh…) This is the final chapter, so for all those who were expecting more…well, I'm sorry, but you know…writer's block. Hope you had fun reading this and enjoy the rest of the story! And please review!

                It would be a lie to say that life returned to normal after their ordeal at the Malfoy manor. Much to Harry's surprise, though, after the initial questioning, newspaper stories, and other things began to die down, life began to mend itself again.

                Hermione, though she had been deeply shaken the first few days after they had left the manor, was almost as happy as she had been before. All she asked, she said, was that she wouldn't have to recount the ordeal ever again until she was ready.

                Harry had had his face healed up and felt perfectly normal again. He learned to be extra-cautious now, and he never left his wand more than an arm's length away from him. The window in Harry's room had been fixed—Harry had offered to pay for it, which Tom the innkeeper accepted gratefully—and was now mercifully unstuck. He could open it without difficulty now.

                Ron, however, had been most deeply affected. Seeing Draco Malfoy killed before his eyes changed something in him. For the first few days after, he was unusually pale, and kept to his room most of the time. Whenever Harry, Hermione, and Ginny tried to speculate on what the Ministry had done with Lucius Malfoy, he always left the room. However, Ron seemed to be slowly returning back to normal and color had begun to show in his face again. He was still not his usual self, but Harry was determined to change all that. Ron needed cheering up, he knew, and he wasn't the only one—Ginny was almost as distraught as he was, but for a totally different reason: September the First was only two days away, and as much as she loved Hogwarts, she most certainly didn't want to leave Ron, Hermione, and Harry. At lest, she didn't want to leave them after all that they had been through together.

                Harry decided that he would fool around in Diagon Alley with Ron, Ginny, and Hermione for the day—just acting like the young wizards they were, and to let themselves stop worrying about the future, or remembering yesterday—to just let themselves enjoy the days at hand.

                He barged into Ron's room early that morning, fully dressed and fully awake. Ron was still asleep, an old Chudley Cannons book spread out on the floor beside him.

                 "Wake up," he said loudly. He prodded Ron in the leg with his sneaker.

                "Harry?" Ron muttered thickly, raising his head off the pillow a bit and squinting at him through narrowed eyes. "What are you doing—it's so early— "

                "I told you, I'm taking you all out in Diagon Alley for the day," Harry said. He stooped down on the floor and, picking up the book, placed it on Ron's bedside table and patted its top. "And it's not early, it's a quarter to nine in the morning. Come on, nearly all of the shops are already open— "

                "Wake me up later," Ron grunted, turning over; Harry punched Ron (not too hard) in the back.

                "You wake up now," he said firmly. "Come on, get up already, it's bright and sunny out, we're wasting time! " He thumped Ron on the back again. Ron only recoiled. "Come on, Ron! I'm going to spoil you all rotten today! It's the money-spending opportunity of a lifetime!"

                "I can spend money any day!" Ron mumbled, putting his pillow over his head.

                "No you can't," Harry reminded him.

                "So what? It's not like you planned this!" Ron said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

                "For your information, Ronald Weasley, I did plan this. I have blueprints. I have a to-do list. I compiled my money in three separate pockets. Galleons go in the left pocket, Sickles go in the right, and Knuts go in my shirt pocket--"

                Ron threw his pillow at Harry.

                Harry kicked the bed in a last effort to rouse Ron.

                "All right!" Ron said crossly. "Just get out of my room while I change, will you?"

                "Right," Harry said, and rushed back out of Ron's room.

                He stopped at the top of the stairs to wave at Ginny, who was waiting far below for Harry to wake up Ron and fetch Hermione. As he waved at her she grinned and waved back.

                "Ron's changing his clothes!" he yelled down at her. "I'm just going to get Hermione—be down in a minute— "

                "All right," she said back up at him. "Hurry up!"

                Harry grinned back and left the stairs to go and get Hermione.

                He bounced into Hermione's room, successfully startling Hermione, who jumped to her feet and spilled pieces of parchment over the floor.

                "Harry!" she said in a half-amused, half-exasperated voice.

                "Are you done getting yourself ready?" he asked her.

                "Yes," she said. "But— "

                "See you downstairs, then!" Harry said over his shoulder, and he leaped back out of her room.

                As he fairly danced down the stairs he found Ron sitting at a table with Mrs. Weasley, still looking a bit tired and disgruntled. Mrs. Weasley, however, looked positively delighted.

                "It's wonderful that you're taking all this effort to cheer Ron and Ginny up, Harry dear," she said as she kissed him on the cheek.

                "It's no problem," he said. "Well, see you, I'd better get going— " He looked at the staircase and saw Hermione, looking not-too-pleased, coming down the stairs.  "Bye, Mrs. Weasley!" he called, and he headed over to the doorway, where Ginny ran up to him.

                Harry enlisted the help of a thoroughly excited Ginny to drag a slightly unenthusiastic Hermione and a yawning Ron out of the Leaky Cauldron and up the cobbled streets of Diagon Alley. Ron seemed to wake up a bit more when Harry dragged him into Quality Quidditch Supplies and said, "Go ahead. I'll buy whatever you want."

                Harry, however, drew the line when Ron pointed enthusiastically to a Firebolt. He bought Ron several Galleons' worth of Chudley Cannon products instead, and Ron left Quality Quidditch Supplies laden down with several bulging shopping-bags, stammering his thanks to Harry.

                "It's no problem," Harry told him stoutly. "You deserve it—you really saved our lives back in the manor. All right, Hermione, your turn…" For Hermione had excitedly pointed out Flourish and Blotts.

                Harry bought Hermione several books there, and he also bought Ginny a few things to cheer her up while she was away at Hogwarts—a bottle of color-changing ink, and a quill that had had a charm placed on it so that it could never accidentally blot the page.

                Next he pulled them all into Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop and bought several trick sweets for Ron ("Maybe I could give Fred and George a taste of their own medicine," Ron said happily as he looked closely at a packet of Hiccup Sweets Harry had waved under his nose) and a whole lot of other tricks and jokes—including some of their old favorites: Dungbombs, Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks, and a few Nose-Biting-Teacups—until finally Hermione dragged them all out to go look at the other shops.

                In no time at all they had gone over nearly half of Diagon Alley. Ron started complaining about walking so long, so Harry suggested that they all take a break and have a quick bit of ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlor.

                After Ron had finished eating his ice cream they set off again. Harry pulled them all into a tiny junk shop, which was far more interesting inside than it looked to people on the outside. Ginny was enchanted by the old, splotched books and magical instruments whirring around the shop, though she firmly refused to buy anything.

                Harry then led Ron over to the shop where he had bought his Eye of Truth. The manager Harry had met wasn't there that day—instead, there was an assistant, who let Ron see for himself what the Eye of Truth could do. Ron began to say that he felt hungry again (it was nearly lunchtime) and Harry shooed them out of the shop and went to a large candy-shop. The sweets there brought back memories of visiting Honeydukes back in Hogsmeade Village. Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were looking in wonder all around them at the shelves stocked heavily with sweets, and Harry relented and bought them all, according to Ron, "enough sweets to last us seven years." Hermione then proceeded in dragging Ron all the way back to Ollivander's, where she bought a new wand (rosewood, twelve-and-a-quarter inches, flexible, containing the heartstring of a dragon). Harry went with Ginny to a magical-instrument shop where he bought a new set of Exploding Snap cards for her and also a very old, very worn book (Hairy Snout, Human Heart—"an account of one wizard's battle with being a werewolf" the back cover proclaimed) before they headed back outside, where Hermione and Ron were waiting for them.

                Talking, laughing, and snatching Every Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs from the bags of sweets Harry had bought, they finally headed back to the Leaky Cauldron for a late lunch. For the rest of the sleepy afternoon, they sat alone in the near-empty parlor, playing Exploding Snap, wizard chess and chewing Drooble's Best-Blowing Gum.

                Harry laughed and talked as much as the rest of friends. As the Exploding Snap card-castle he was building blew up in his face for the third time (much to the amusement of Ron, who nearly fell out of his chair laughing as Harry leaped away from the smoldering pile of cards), he knew one thing, and one thing only…as he watched the looks on Ginny and Hermione's faces as they defeated Ron's bishop in wizard chess…that nothing, nothing in the whole wide world, could make him happier than he was at the moment.

                This was what being a wizard is like, thought Harry as Ron's knight successfully knocked a pawn out of the board. There's nothing like this. Nothing.

                Harry agreed, along with Hermione, to come with Mrs. Weasley to drop Ginny off at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Mr. Weasley, coming back from the investigation of the Malfoy Manor, came along too. He seemed perfectly happy, though just a bit tired.

                "At least Malfoy's talking," he said conspiratorially to Harry. "We've gotten a lot of answers out of him, a lot more than I thought we would…however…"

                He broke off, looking curiously at a teenager who had just placed the earphones of a handheld radio on his ears and switched the radio on.

                "Is that a radio, Harry?" he asked excitedly. "How absolutely fascinating! How do they work?"

                Harry laughed to himself and began explaining how a tape player worked to Mr. Weasley, who listened raptly to every word. He only stopped listening and nodding enthusiastically when Mrs. Weasley said rather irritably, "Ginny's about to leave now, Arthur…don't you want to say goodbye to her?"

                "Oh, yes, of course!" Mr. Weasley said, rather sheepishly, and went over to kiss Ginny good-bye.

                "Have fun, Ginny!" Hermione said happily as she hugged Ginny. "Send us an owl all about the first day of your last year, won't you?"

                "I will," Ginny said, looking embarrassed, but seeming rather pleased all the same.

                "See you in a year," Ron said, hugging his sister too. "Here—take some of these along with you, you can eat them on the train—" He pushed a small parcel full of sweets into Ginny's hands.

                Ginny blushed a deep shade of scarlet when Harry bid her good-bye.

                "Take care of yourself, won't you?" he said, grinning at her. Ginny only nodded, and when he hugged her, she began to stutter incoherently.

                "Good-bye, Ginny dear," Mrs. Weasley said, and kissed Ginny twice on each cheek. "Send me an owl when you get there."

                "I will," Ginny said, still blushing furiously.

                "And say hello to Hagrid for us," Harry said; Ginny nodded fervently.

                "Goodness, the train!" Mrs. Weasley said frantically as the whistle blew loudly. "All right, Ginny—you have all your things then? All right—go on—have fun— "

                "Bye!" Ginny said. "See you!"

                She climbed onto the train, and after a few seconds, stuck her head out of the window to kiss her mother good-bye.

                "See you, Ron—Hermione—Harry!" she said, waving frantically. "Bye!"

                The train began to move; Ron, Harry, and Hermione waved furiously at Ginny until the train had moved far enough so that she had to pull her head back inside the window; then the train began zooming off, becoming nothing but a red speck in the middle of the platform's railway tunnel.

                "All right, Harry?" he heard Hermione say at his shoulder; he turned around and grinned.

                "Come on," he said. "Back to the inn."

                Together with Ron, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley, he Apparated back to the Leaky Cauldron. As he stood there, blinking at the dusty sunlight piercing the window-blinds in the parlor, and looking around at Ron and Hermione, his two best friends in the world, he again felt that indescribable happiness.

                "D'you sometimes get the feeling," he said to Ron and Hermione, "That you're one of the world's lucky ones?"

                Hermione smiled. "All the time."

                "We probably are the luckiest ones right now," Ron said, shaking his head. "Imagine all those times we could've died, and look…we're all still here…"

                "It seems like a long time ago," Harry said. "Since we were at Hogwarts."

                "It does," Hermione agreed.

                "You know what?" Harry said, beginning to go up the stairs, but looking over his shoulder at Ron and Hermione, "I reckon life will never be normal for us. Ever. Something's going to happen to us again sooner or later."

                "Don't remind me," Ron groaned.

                "That's not going to stop us, though, is it?" Harry continued. He looked back up at the stairs, and smiled.

                "Hey, Ron? Hermione?"

                "What?" they asked in unison.

                "Let's grow old together," Harry said.

                "Yeah." Ron grinned too. "That'll be a challenge."

                Harry's face split into a wide grin. "I'll say."

                And, bounding up the stairs, his feet barely making a noise as they fell lightly to the carpeted steps, Harry knew, beyond all doubt…Ron was right. He was one of the luckiest ones in the world. It was all there…he had good friends, had once had parents that had loved him, and a godfather who still cared…not to mention being a fully-fledged wizard…

                He ran his fingers over the old scar on his forehead, and his grin widened.

                Where it all started…and where it all ended.

                You're a wizard, Harry…Hagrid's voice seemed to echo in his mind.

                You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head…so did the Sorting Hat's first words to him.

                "It doesn't matter," Harry said. "I've got friends, and I'm alive…I don't need anything else."

                Smiling softly to himself, he climbed up the last stair, toward the future…towards his future.

                I am one of the lucky ones, Harry thought. I really think I am.

THE END